


I know in my heart that it's right

by Woland



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers Endgame Spoilers, Avengers Endgame fix-it, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt Tony, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, I will attempt to fix it, Marvel did them both dirty, Steve Rogers deserved a better ending, Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark deserved a better ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-10 17:35:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Woland/pseuds/Woland
Summary: Endgame left me angry, disappointed and sad. No good resolution for any of the main characters; complete disregard for their personal arcs, their growth, their wants and needs.  This is my attempt to fix some of it.





	1. Chapter 1

“Huh, I didn’t know Stark could read Italian.”

 

They’re standing inside the Starks’ large airy living room, the day’s waning light streaming through the French windows, casting a soft glow on the lovingly carved wooden bookshelves lining far wall.  The funeral was over some time ago and most guests have already left, the flowers and the leftover canapés drying mournfully on the buffet table.  The Avengers, though, what’s left of them, remain, still milling around the otherwise empty living room, unable or unwilling somehow to walk away.

 

He looks up, still so lost in thought that Scott’s question doesn’t register with him right away.  Frowns in dawning realization as he watches the other man leaf through a thick folio of what looks like poems.

 

“Oh…uh… his… Tony’s mother was Italian, I think,” he responds, finding his voice strangely hoarse. 

 

_“This isn’t going to change what happened.”_

_“I don’t care. He killed my mom.”_

 

He swallows, forcing down the bitterness of the memory.  Waves inarticulately in the direction of the book.  “He told me once she taught it to him…”

 

“Put the book down, please, Mr. Lang,” Pepper’s cold, bitingly formal voice comes from the doorway, and a tangible wave of apprehension settles over all of them as they watch, silent, as she strides purposefully into the room, her shoulders straight, her head held high.

 

Scott slides the book back onto the shelf so fast, Steve is surprised he doesn’t drop the folio in his haste.  And, honestly, Steve can’t really blame the guy: if there’s one thing he’s learned in all the years he’s known Tony it’s that you don’t mess with Pepper Potts; especially not when she speaks in _that_ voice.

 

“Good,” Pepper nods approvingly, surveys all of them with a sharp frosty look.  “And now get out, all of you.”

 

That shocks Steve enough that he actually rocks forward, mouth already opening to object.

 

Pepper raises her hand to forestall him.  “I let you, lot, stay for the funeral because I didn’t want to cause a scene.  Not here, not…” She trails off momentarily, her lips trembling slightly as she visibly struggles for control.  “Not today.  Not in front of Morgan.”  She pauses, casts a quick glance over her shoulder to the hallway beyond.  “But Morgan cried herself to sleep a few minutes ago, so...” She turns back to them and there’s the kind of powerfully raw anguish in her gaze that sears right through Steve, makes him want to back down and back out.  Repeats in the same cold, implacable voice, “Get out. I don’t wanna see any of you here.  Ever again.”

 

Scott is the first one to move, shuffling awkwardly past Pepper to get to the door.  Clint and Wanda follow suit, throwing Steve a sheepish, subdued look.  

 

Steve shakes his head.  “Pepper, come on,” he tries, taking a cautious step toward her.  “Don’t… don’t be like that.  Tony wouldn’t want this.” Behind her he sees the others pause in the doorway, watching the two of them with worried but hopeful looks.

 

Pepper’s lips twist into something ugly, something bitter.  “Now you are concerned about what Tony would want?” she challenges, and even though she doesn’t raise her voice, doesn’t make a single move in his direction, Steve suddenly feels the urge to take a step back.  “That’s … exceptionally rich coming from you, Mr. Rogers.  Where was that concern when you forced him to work with a Witch who hated his guts and filled his head with nightmares that almost drove him insane? Where was that concern when he fought to keep this team, _your_ team together, and you fought _him_ for it? When you left him to die in Siberia in a suit you drove your shield through?” 

 

She does take a step toward him then, her eyes bright with cold, dangerous fury.  “Did you care about what he wanted then, _Captain_?” She spits out his title like a physical slap.  “Did you wonder at all, while you and your team of criminals sat around twiddling your thumbs in Wakanda, whether he wanted to be the one stuck cleaning up your mess? The one left to be held responsible for things he didn’t even do?  Did you wonder if he wanted to go up in space? Alone? To face his worst nightmare – the nightmare _she_ planted in his head?” She stabs a finger blindly in the direction of Wanda, who flinches away from it as from a physical blow.

 

“Did you wonder,” Pepper steps closer still – a billowing pillar of condemnation, “did you wonder, when you all showed up here, demanding that he give up his family for the sake of everyone else’s here… did you wonder if that was what he…” Pepper’s voice cracks momentarily, the fury in her eyes ebbing, the intense blue clouding over with grief, “what he wanted?”

 

“I’m sorry,” he tries again, wincing at how inadequate the words sound in his own ears.  The way Pepper’s whole face darkens in response tells him he should have kept his mouth shut.

 

“I don’t want your sorries, _Captain_.  What I want is my husband back.  Can you do that? Can you bring him back to me and tell _him_ how sorry you are for everything you and your team have put him through? No?” She scoffs at his cowed silence.  “Didn’t think so.”

 

She falls silent then, her eyes closing briefly as her face crumples with anguish barely held at bay.  When she opens them again, they are alight with tears, and she raises a trembling hand to swipe it harshly across her right cheek.   

 

“Get out of my house, all of you,” she repeats, voice strong despite her wavering composure.  “Go back to your families.  I have a daughter to raise, and I am fairly sure that Tony _wouldn’t want_ any one of you anywhere near her.  I sure as hell don’t.”

 

Steve nods, feeling numb all over.  Walks over to where the others are filing slowly out of the room, looking for all the world like a bunch of beaten-down dogs.  There are no words left to say, no excuses left to give. 

He feels Pepper’s gaze on him, heavy and pressing like the barrel of a gun.  Somehow the weight of it remains with him even when he leaves the house far behind.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

“Welcome, Steve Rogers, son of Sarah… _Captain America_.”

 

“Schmidt!” He stumbles back a step at the sight of the hauntingly familiar disfigured face. Reaches subconsciously for the non-existent shield.

 

“Relax, Captain,” the other scoffs, its ghostly robes billowing around him in the bitingly cold wind of Vormir’s mountaintop.  “I am doomed to stay here for all eternity – a guide to those who wish to obtain the Soul Stone.  Earthly squabbles no longer hold any interest for me.”

 

Steve forces himself to relax then; squints up at the floating figure of his former enemy, who watches him with a look of bored amusement.

 

“Tell me what it is you seek here, Steve Rogers,” Red Skull addresses him again when the silence between them stretches a tad too long.  “I know it isn’t the Stone itself, for you already have it in your possession.” 

He looks pointedly at the right pocket of Steve’s jeans, and Steve can’t help slipping his hand inside to curl his fingers protectively around the small round shape.

 

He hesitates a moment, his thumb running back and forth over the smooth surface of the Stone.  Pulls it out, holding it protectively in the cup of his palm.

 

“I came to return this,” he says finally, and is gratified to see a flicker of surprise cross the otherwise uncannily blank face.

 

“The Stone usually finds its way back here once its task is complete,” the being muses finally, its dark eyes watching Steve intently.  “In all the time I’ve been here, nobody ever tried to return it in person.”

 

“First time for everything.”

 

The Skull tilts his head in agreement, reaches out a hand expectantly toward the Stone.

 

Steve hesitates again, his fingers clenching harder around the cursed gem, as an unbidden memory floats to the surface.

 

_Tony with his arms wrapped tight around his little girl, who’s hiding her face in her father’s shoulder, his gaze intense and earnest as he looks back up at Steve:_

 

_“I got my second chance right here, Cap. Can’t roll the dice on that.”_

 

_Pepper, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow with grief, her voice breaking as she bares before them the depth of the damage they caused:_

 

_“Did you wonder when you all showed up here, demanding that he give up his family for the sake of everyone else’s here… did you wonder if that was what he…what he wanted?”_

He closes his eyes briefly, takes a deep breath.

 

_“What I want is my husband back. Can you do that?”_

 

_Yeah,_ he thinks.  _Yes_ , _I think I can._

“I want something in return,” he states firmly, pulling the hand with the Stone closer to his body.  “I want to trade a soul.”

 

“No.” The response is sharp and unequivocal like the slamming of a door in one’s face, and the Skull is already turning away from him, red lips twisted in a moue of displeasure.

 

Steve is never one to give up easily, however.  Not when he’s got his mind set on a specific course. 

 

“What do you mean ‘no’?” he exclaims, reaching to grab for the retreating figure only to curse in helpless surprise when his hand passes right through the ghostly form.  “Why not?”

 

The Skull stops, turns back toward him, dark eyes regarding him with a glare of bored annoyance.  “It simply isn’t done,” he responds, voice flat.

 

“Well,” Steve smirks back, echoing his earlier statement, “first time for everything, right?”  When the Skull merely stares back at him, unperturbed, he ploughs on, determined now, more than ever.  “Come on.  It takes one soul to receive the Stone, right? So if I give the Stone back, it means I can take a soul in return. Right?”

 

The being stares at him for the longest time as though contemplating his words, then shakes its head.  “The Stone demands a sacrifice, one way or another.  You cannot simply ask for it to grant you someone’s life as a favor for returning it to its rightful place.”

 

It’s a moment of hesitation, a brief look behind the black-robed figure to the red-tinged swells of clouds beyond, and then he’s decided.  He knows what to do.  And it’s right.  The realization of it feels so incredibly right, he feels giddy with it.

 

“Then take the sacrifice,” he says, meeting the Skull’s indifferent gaze once more.  “Take me, take the Stone, and let the other go.”

 

“You?”

 

Steve’s lips twitch in a challenging smirk.  “Wouldn’t you want to have _me_ in there?” He nods at the darkness behind the Skull.

 

The being’s face sours.  “I already told you, earthly conflicts...”

 

“Don’t interest you anymore, yes, I got that.” Steve takes a tantalizing step closer; allows his smirk to get wider still.   “But would you _really_ pass up on the opportunity to finally get the better of me? After all this time?”

 

The dark eyes narrow briefly, the Skull’s upper lip curling in a snarl.  “And you’re sure you want to go through with this? Spend an eternity with the souls of the dead?”

 

Steve glances down at the softly glowing Stone in the cup of his palm; traces a finger over its cool smooth surface one last time before placing it resolutely in the being’s once more outstretched hand.

 

“I am,” he confirms, feeling lighter somehow than he has in years.  Smiles fondly as another memory flits across his mind – of a fiery brown-eyed woman with a smile that could sweep a guy off his feet and a powerful right hook that could easily do the same.  “I am,” he echoes, glancing out into the red-hued void once more. “B’sides there’s someone in the Soul World I believe I owe a dance to.”

 

***

 

There’s a flash of skin-searing, blinding light and the orange-hued peacefully desolate landscape around him disappears, and he finds himself kneeling in the dew-soaked ankle-high grass at the edge of a lake.  It feels familiar somehow, this place.  Like he should know it.  Like he… like he’s been here before.

 

Only his brain is too sluggish, his thoughts and memories clawing their way to the forefront of his consciousness, heavy and viscous like molasses, not quite managing to reach the surface.  He feels like his entire body is being glued back together sloppily and painfully slow, like a jigsaw puzzle at the hands of an inexperienced child, after having been ripped apart piece by piece.

 

“Holy cheeseburger…” 

 

He looks up at the odd, softly gasped out exclamation.  Frowns in concentration at the heavyset round-faced man who stares back at him from the steps of a wooden house a few yards away, his eyes wide with disbelief.  _I know him_ , he thinks, and flinches as the man turns his head slightly to the side and booms over his shoulder, never breaking eye contact, “PEPPEEER!!!”

 

The name jolts something deep within him – a memory, a face, a touch….

 

_“You’re all I have, too, you know.”_

 

“Pepper,” he breathes out, staggering up to his feet even as _she_ walks out onto the porch.

 

“Happy, what did you-?” And then she freezes, hand going to her mouth.  Grabs convulsively for the support of the nearby railing as if her legs began to fail her all of a sudden.  “Oh my god…,” he hears her murmur, “oh my god…”

 

_She’s beautiful_ , he thinks.  Like an illusion, a dream he’s had for as long as he can remember.  But there are tears in her eyes, bright drops glistening on the edges of the long eyelashes, and that is wrong – she shouldn’t cry. He should never make her cry.  He had promised that.  He thinks he had.

 

“Pep,” he calls out again, his voice too hoarse, too quiet even to his own ears.  He tries to go to her then, stumbles forward as much as he’s able to.  But his body still doesn’t feel like his own, and his legs wobble and fold underneath him, dropping him back down to his knees with a groan of frustrated defeat.

 

“Tony…”  And she’s suddenly right there, kneeling before him in the wet grass.  And he wants to tell her to get up – the ground is too cold for her to be kneeling like that on her bare legs.  But then she’s reaching for him – reverent and fearful, as if she can’t believe he’s here, can’t believe he’s real.  As if he, too, is an illusion that will disappear the moment her hand makes contact with his skin.

 

And maybe he will.  Maybe none of this is real.  Maybe…

 

He sucks in a surprised breath when her fingertips – warm and solid – brush the skin of his cheek; feels the near-dizzying enormity of relief at the undeniable tangibility of it.

 

“Oh, Tony…”

 

“Real enough?” he croaks out, trying for cheeky but falling pathetically short somewhere in the fearfully hopeful instead, the smile he gives her feeling a tad too shaky, a tad too forced.

 

It still startles a laugh out of her – wet and broken like a sob. And then she lurches forward, her arms wrapping around his shoulders with an urgent, desperate need.  He lets her pull him in, lets her warmth, her scent, her solid, real presence envelop and soothe him.

 

“I died,” he murmurs dazedly into her shoulder.  He remembers that moment, all too well.  Remembers the seemingly never-ending, unbearable pain of it; the tears in Rhodey’s eyes; Peter’s broken, desperate voice that sounded so, so far away; and Pepper, Pepper, _Pepper_ … his anchor, his soulmate, his _life_.  He didn’t want to leave her.  God, he didn’t want to leave her!  And Morgan… and…

 

Pepper’s arms tighten around him as if she somehow glimpsed the terrifying spiral of his thoughts, as if she’s trying to ward those memories off by the simple strength of her embrace. 

 

Tony honestly believes she can.

 

“You’re here now,” she whispers, like nothing else matters – the how’s, the why’s, the before’s. 

 

And maybe it doesn’t.  Maybe all that matters is that he’s back.  Someway, somehow.

 

He glances up at the sound of small feet pounding along a wooden surface.  Smiles, teary-eyed, at the sight of his baby girl rushing headlong toward him, Peter, Rhodey and Happy following behind her with the same expressions of disbelieving joy he knows he’s wearing himself.  Dares to pull one hand away from where he has it clenched around the back of Pepper’s shirt to wave at all of them to come closer.

 

They do not hesitate, and he soon finds himself engulfed on all sides by familiar loving arms, their added warmth seeming to finish what Pepper’s embrace has started.  He feels complete now, solid, whole.

 

“We’re gonna be okay now.” Pepper’s breath ghosts over his skin, her words – a sure, solid promise.  “It’s all gonna be okay.”

 

He closes his eyes, his head resting against Pepper’s neck, his free arm curled around Morgan who wrapped herself around his middle like a four-limbed 40-pound octopus.  Lets himself soak up the warmth and the love of his family and friends – as tangible as the arms that enfold him. 

 

And he believes it.


End file.
